If I can't be everything to you.....you will be nothin to me

bruce and mistakes

Usually it was so easy to concentrate. Wayne Enterprises wasn’t always easy to run, but it was easy to get lost in, spend hours into the night glossing over, reviewing and denying projects that weren’t beneficial to Gotham.

It was a bad habit he’d passed onto his children-- to Dick, to Jason, to Tim… to Dahlia .

He scowled and flicked over to the next screen with a little more harshness than the touchscreen was used to. Alfred glanced up from the other side of the desk, where he dusted. “Something on your mind, Master Bruce?”

Of course Alfred knew. He probably knew exactly what he was thinking about, too, but he always wanted words and verbalization.

It was for the better, of course, but it was still inconvenient. “It’s Dahlia . We get into a fight, and next thing I know, she’s getting married to somebody Talia picked for her?”

They hadn’t talked about that, yet, hadn’t had the time to between wedding preparations and announcements. He’d thought, perhaps, that he’d wait a small while, allow Dahlia to calm down, give himself some time to think about what to say, how to best show Dahlia what he’d meant, make things right.

But he should have known his children better. Should have known that Dahlia was reckless and, despite what she’d have everyone believe, led by her heart.

He should have known Dahlia would do something drastic, take things too far, but it’d been only the day after, and he and Dahlia had fights in the past, and they’d never gone downhill so fast.

Dahlia had acted out of character, that night. That was why they’d fought. It’d been years since he’d acted so violently, since she’d seen Jason in his punches and Ras in the broken bones. She was distracted, lost to herself, and more than the thugs she’d put in a hospital bed, he was haunted by the possibility his girl would end up in one, too.

There was something else going on with her, something that led to this, something that was pushing her more than a fight with her father ever could to swear her life away to a friend of the Al Ghuls.

He sighed. Alfred raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to do, Alfred. She shouldn’t go through with this. I’ve lost Robins to death, to time, but never…”

“...to matrimony?” He glared up at Alfred, who smiled cheekily at him and turned to dust the bust of his father.

He sighed, set the tablet down and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, massaging away the pending headache.

It seemed like he'd constantly had one since this all started, since his youngest walked through the doors with a stranger at her hip, some evil-eyed strumpet of a man who looked at their family like an opposing set of chess pieces, like he was planning on knocking every single one of them out until their king piece was his.

He scowled. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it. But the issue wasn’t the other half of the ceremony-- it was Dahlia. “You know as well as I do that if I urge her to reconsider, it’ll just push her away.”

“Not if you have backup.”

He glanced up just in time to hear Alfred’s smiling voice in greeting. “Master Dick, Miss Koriand’r, I would have greeted you at the door.”

DIck smiled at Alfred as he leaned up against the threshold, arms crossed, file hanging at his limp hand, and he looked so tired, so not like himself.

His blue eyes, the staple of Robin that remained in him, that softness, seemed buried under stress. Beside him, at his arm, the usually energetic Kori had lost some of the glow in her skin, and she was smiling, too, but they both looked so dead to the world, like Tim, like him, after they’d closed a case that’d gone on far too long.

He glanced down at the file in Dick’s hand, glanced back up with the silent beckoning he’d learned to read well before his years as Robin came to a close.

He grunted. “No metas in Gotham.”

Dick raised the file in the air and grinned, absolutely, completely ignoring him. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

726 Words
Hey yesterday  was my birthday so here's a chapter

Arrevedercci 😀😎